


One Step Forward, a Flight of Stairs Back

by LoyalTheorist



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Badass Mabel Pines, Communication Failure, Dark Comedy, Family Feels, Filbrick Pines Is A Jerk, Ford Pines is a Jerk, Ford Pines is a Mess, Gen, More tags to be added, Stan Pines Needs A Hug, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-07-27 10:26:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16217126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoyalTheorist/pseuds/LoyalTheorist
Summary: Mabel isn't completely certain how she got herself into this situation, but if anyone asks, she was drunk and her brother did nothing to stop her. It's not even that bad a situation.Stan knows he's really got no choice - it's talk to the woman or die, at this point - but she's a pretty shady bitch. Either she literally appeared out of thin air, or he's been drugged. She stumbles up to him, and he backs away instinctively."Hi, I'm Mabel," she says, and her breath smells like beer, but she says it in an intriguing enough way that he almost wants to step back towards her. "You wanna save a dork from torment?""What?""Come on, Stan, it'll be fun."He's being blackmailed, probably, but he thinks "Screw it, what've I got to lose," and all of the sudden, he's in his car with a shady bitch, a six-pack of beer, an entire canister of something called "attack glitter",  and a shit-ton of regret.





	1. In Which Mabel is Drunk and Stan is On the Run and They Have No Authority Figures to Tell Them To Stop Vandalizing Building Walls With Things Like "Hello, Future Me," and, "I Just Saw a Very Large Bear,"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are welcomed into a world where Stan is 27, Mabel is 25, and everyone makes mistakes. Plus, the chapter titles are ridiculously long.

Dipper Pines laughs a short laugh as his sister finishes her rant about how everyone has the wrong impression of cockatrices. "Okay, that's it. I do not trust you to drive yourself home anymore. I'll call you a cab."  
"Not a problem," She says, laughing back at him, "I walked here."

He shakes his head at her. "You dork."  
"You're a bigger dork."  
"Than you? Impossible. Anyways, I'd best be going. We on for next week still?"

"Yeah, 'course." She says, and she means it. She stands to leave and the two of them walk a better part of the way to the door before Dipper notices the slapping of bare feet on the tiled floor.

"Don't forget your heels."  
"Dammit, I was hoping you wouldn't notice 'nd I could leave 'em behind." 

"Doubtful."

"Get outta here."  
"Right, well, g'bye, Mabes."

"Bye, Dipper."  
A step out the door and Mabel's feet make contact with snow. She grins. 

"This is both cold and awesome at the same time." 

A few steps forward and -  _crunch._ She steps on something at least partially plastic. Picking it up and brushing it off, she recognizes it.

Time tape. She wonders, briefly, who left it there.

"What is it?" Dipper, who had walked a little ways ahead, calls back at her.

"Time tape!" She shouts over at him. "Broken, though! Stepped on it!"

"'Ight! Well, bye. Again."  
"Bye again!"

She fiddles with it a moment before dropping it on the ground.  There's a harsh crack, and she starts to walk away. Then her world is consumed by blue light. It's all around her - no, she's all around it - she is the light. Fear builds quickly, and then, after an eternity and no time at all, both, she slips into unconscious giddiness.

* * *

 

_I slid around the corner, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw her, with her long hair all pulled up in her scrunchies, back-combed and everything, and I thought to myself, "no way in hell am I just going to stand here and let everything happen,"_ _because, in that moment, it hit me like a sack of bricks - how small she was. Not, you know, physically, but mentally. Like, she'd spent so much time trying to be who people thought she was that she hardly actually had any realness left anymore. But I could see it, right then. The realness. She was a fine girl. Better person than me, though that's not much of a competition. Sometimes that's what it takes - being half-dead in a backstreet ally - to see who a person really is. She was so full of plaster copies of_ _joy and light and energy, That was what was really magic about her. Even with all that trash the world had thrown at her, she still had truth and hope and belief in her. I was stupid, back then. I wish - I wish I'd known._

* * *

 

Gunshot, close to his head. Too close.  _Shit._ Into this alleyway, out another. No problem. Stan's been here even longer than he's been most places, and he's a quick learner besides. He knows these streets like the back of his hand. Better, because he doesn't spend time memorizing what the back of his hand looks like. Click. Down. Slide. Shot. He thanks God for his killer instinct - a little buttering up before praying he'll make it out of Maryland before his time is up. NYC or Chicago he could deal with, but not freaking Annapolis.  _"Hey,"_ he thought to himself,  _"Least it's better than Jersey."_

Another turned corner and he could no longer hear the telltale footsteps of someone chasing him. Of course, he'd only lost them a while - who knew when they'd be back. This was a dead end, and a little ways away from him lay a woman around his age, maybe younger, passed out on the street. She looked...translucent. He walked up to her.  _Jeez_ , this was such a bad idea. Hesitantly, he reached out to touch her, and his finger went straight through her shoulder. Stan jumped back in surprise. 

No way.

No. Flipping. Way.

"Cornwall! I know you're out there!" Calls a rough voice. 

Stan knows he's really got no choice - it's talk to the woman or die, at this point - but she's a pretty shady bitch. Either she's dead, or he's been drugged. He leans up against the wall. This is where it ends, he supposes. With a half-starved man in a vacant ally, with a ghost woman and a debt to settle. He closes his eyes. He waits. He opens them only when he hears shuffling across from him. Like a slap across the face, he realizes he doesn't want to die sitting here.

Might as well fight in the one-in-a-million chance he'll survive this. He stands, but it's just the woman. She stumbles up to him, and he backs away instinctively.

"Hi, I'm Mabel," she says, and her breath smells like beer, but she says it in an intriguing enough way that he almost wants to step back towards her. "You wanna save a dork from torment?"

"What?"

"Come on, Stan, it'll be fun." 

"How do you know my name?"  
"Doesn't everyone? C'mon, silly, let's go."  
"What?"  
"Alright, here's the deal. You take me back to my apartment and I'll leave you alone."  
"Wha-Who-I don't know where you live!"  
"No, but I do."

"That doesn't help  _me._ "

"True, true, true. Very true. Okay. Can I crash at your place, then?"  
She's very drunk, but something in the back of Stan's head is telling him to say  _yeah, sure, you can come with me,_ and he isn't sure which part it is but it needs to get out of the rest of his head this instant or he's pretty sure  it'll start a riot - and Stan's had experience with riots. 

She looks at him, her eyes bright and hopeful, and apparently his brain misinterpreted, because he says, "Yeah, sure, you can come with me." 


	2. In Which Mabel is Thinking and Stan is Confused and There are No Authority Figures Around To Tell Them Not To Vandalize the Sides of Buildings With Things Like, "Wowza," and, "I'm Just a Poor Boy, Nobody Loves Me."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Shit, this means I can't share with you my knowledge of pop culture. Wait, do you know Bohemian Rhapsody? By Queen?"  
> "Um...yeah, why?"  
> Mabel began screaming at the top of her lungs. "IS THIS REAL LIFE? IS THIS JUST FANTASY?"  
> "Wh-,"  
> "CAUGHT IN A LANDSLIDE! NO ESCAPE FROM REALITY!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for how long it took to get this chapter out. I had a realization in the middle of writing it, and a part of the plot needed some reworking. Also - had to change the ages of our mains due to timeline issues. Stan is 24, Mabel is 22, and Fiddleford is 25.

They're driving back to the motel Stan has been staying in for the time being and Mabel is asleep. She's snoring softly in the passenger seat. He considers taking an exit and dumping her at the nearest gas station, yet there's something about her that says trustworthy, and he isn't sure what it is, but he feels strange, like he needs to protect her and keep her safe from harm, even if he hadn't even known she existed until half an hour ago.

He looks over at her.  _"'You wanna save a dork from torment?' What does that even mean?"_ She probably means her brother - she was fricking  _chatty_ before she fell asleep, and she talked about him a lot - Dipper. Who named their kid _Dipper_ _?_ Hippies, he decides. But Mabel's not old enough to be some hippie's kid. Though - he looks her over again - she might be one herself. Dad had never approved of hippies. Stan wasn't the most fond of them, but with half of them addicted to some drug or other, he couldn't say that he hated them, not with the things he'd stolen.  _Was_ currently in trouble for stealing. Or had that been resolved? He couldn't remember anymore.

He pulls into the motel and tries to pick Mabel up. He fails - Mabel is surprisingly heavy for her size. She opens her eyes, not quite enjoying having been dropped onto the gravel parking lot. She looks up at the building and murmurs something about how motels are shady as shit and how much her head hurts. 

"Suck it up." Stan says, rolling his eyes. But he reaches an arm down to help her anyway. He doesn't know why, it just...there's something about Mabel he just doesn't get, something that makes him feel better about- well, he doesn't know. Not really. But she just seems...important. "Best I got."

They sleep. 

* * *

 

Stan makes pretty good company. His voice isn't as rough now as it was when they met (as it will be when they meet?), and he's still got a Jersey accent. Maybe it's familial bias, but Mabel's pretty sure he's one of the best people out there. Not one of the most morally upright people, but one of the best. She watches him as he runs his fingers through his hair before falling back on his bed.

"So," he says, by way of morning greeting, "I brought someone I don't know back to my hotel, let them sleep in my bed, and have not yet thrown them out."

"Is their name Mabel?"

"Yes. Yes, it is. Question, though - does this make me crazy?"

"That depends on whether you go on a road trip with them or not. If you do, then and only then are you not _just completely insane._ "

"I cannot go on a road trip. I've been banned from the entirety of the rust belt, and it would be half impossible for me to get out of New York anyway."  
"It'll be fine. It's just an exercise in stealth."

Stan rolls his eyes. "It's really _not_. I'm stuck, Mabel."

The two of them sit in silence for a very long time. Mabel notes that Stan has that look in his eyes that he gets when something is really bothering him. It's her, she guesses. She'd put money on it if she had any. She knows if it weren't for his taking her in she'd be out on the streets right now, and that she needs to get home. Yet she needed Ford to get home, and Ford was-  
"Stan, what year is it?"  
"'78, why?"

"Damnit."  
"No, really, why don't you know what year it is?"

"Nevermind."  
"C'mon, Mabel! That's not the kinda question normal people ask!"

"Well, maybe I'm not normal."  
"That much was obvious." He grumbles, but he drops the subject, and Mabel is grateful for it.

Ford is in Gravity Falls, and with Bill, nonetheless. It hits her, suddenly, that Bill is alive and well. Better than well. Bill is winning. Fiddleford is probably half-way mad already. Unless...unless it's the beginning of the year. There's snow on the ground, but winter does that...wraparound thing.  
"Stan?"  
"Ugh, what?"

"What month is it?"  
"Why do you have to ask me?"

"It doesn't matter, I just need to know!"  
"I hate you. February."

"Do you have any idea where Backupsmore collage might be located?"  
Stan sits straight up in bed. "'Matter of fact, I do. But it's the biggest fire hazard of a building I've ever seen. The hell do you wanna go there?"

"There might be someone there who I need to talk to."  
"Like who?"

"You wouldn't know him."

"And you can't even give me a name?"

"Fiddleford Hadron McGucket."  
Stan laughed.

* * *

 

"I'm right, though!" Fiddleford shrieks. "I'm right and you know it! You jus' don't wanna admit to it! _I'm right_!"

Then Trevor is gone, and Fiddleford buries his face in his hands. He wishes Ford were still here. Ford would've known what to do, what to say, would've known how to change the direction of the conversation so that it wouldn't end up this way. He was good at that. Changing the topic. Fiddleford was...not. He was loud and outspoken, and he cared so much about everything that it hurt. He locks the door and walks down the stairs to the first floor, where Clancy sits behind a desk, typing corporate nonsense into a desktop computer.

"Hey," She says, looking up at him. "You're late."

"I had a...disagreement."

"You're always having 'disagreements'. Get back here. Oh, and tell me what stupid stuff people are ranting about now."

"Regular things. You and I things. Things that matter enough to fight about and not enough to care that people are fighting over them."

"Damn, Ford. Dramatic much?"

"You know I am."

"Shut up and take my calls."


	3. In Which Mabel is Vague and Stan is Now Incredibly Confused and There are No Authority Figures Around To Stop Them From Painting the Sides of Buildings With Things Like, "Eat Your Imaginary Vegetables, Dammit," and "Oh Gosh, I'm Running Out of Characters"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rori Pines frowned.  
> "Just pretend to eat, Uncle Stan."  
> "No. I made a vow not to eat imaginary vegetables, and I'm not going to break it."  
> "When does that even come up?"  
> "When talking to people like your daughter, obviously."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, due to my busy life and frequent bouts of writer's block, it looks as though we're operating on a chapter-a-month schedule. Apologies.

Mabel runs her fingers through her unbrushed hair. Sure, she's heard Backupsmore was bad, but not this bad. Not chunks-falling-off, held-together-with-duct-tape, hearing-cockroaches-crunch-with-every-step bad.   
"Well," Stan sighs. "Here it is. Idiot central."

"Hey! One of my family members went here! It's also the workplace if our current hero, so shut your mouth."

"C'mon. Anyone who'd actually live here for any period of time is definitely idiotic."

"Stanley Pines, you...actually, you're partially right."  
"So...your people are idiots?"

"Oh, absolutely. Just not in the traditional sense."  
"What does that even mean?"

"It means exactly what I just said. Now shut up and eat your vegetables."  
"I don't have any vegetables!"  
"They're imaginary. Eat your imaginary vegetables!"

"What? No. Never."  
"Never? Oh, you've taken this to an extreme."  
"Nope. Never. I, Stanley Pines, vow to never eat imaginary vegetables."  
"You fiend! You damn fiend! You're the worst!"  
"You can bet on it."  
"Ugh, c'mon."

The front desk is covered in candy wrappers, dust, and dusty candy wrappers. Sitting at is a small, slender man with sandy-brown hair. He's slouched over the desk, tapping one foot on the floor and starting off into space.   
"Excuse me?"  
The man jumps higher than is probably reasonable.  
"I-I, um, oh-yes?"

"We're looking for a Fiddleford Hadron McGucket."  
He raises an eyebrow. "Why, may I ask, would you be doing such a thing?"  
"My buddy and I are in a bit of a predicament. I think he might be able to help us."  
He stands, holds out a hand and says, "Fiddleford McGucket, at your service. How may I help y'all?"

* * *

_Sometimes I wonder if it really happened, or if it was all some kind of elaborate dream. I don't think it was. This nerd insists that it was. He thinks it's impossible, which is ridiculous, given some of the other things he believes._

* * *

 

 Stan's not really sure what's going on. They met with Fiddleford, and then when she told him what they wanted, he and Mabel had started spouting technical nonsense. They were like Ford, Stan thought, as he sipped his tea. It isn't very good tea - it's still too hot, and it was still very watery, and Stan doesn't like tea, anyway. Also, he's certain Mabel is keeping something important from him, if the way Mabel, upon taking Fiddleford's hand, had dragged him away from Stan and, presumably, told Fiddlenerd something she didn't want Stan to hear was anything to go by. Stan was a little pissed off at that actually. If she was going to try and get him to go on a road trip with her and Fiddlesticks, it only seemed fair that he should know everything he reasonably could about the two people trying to get him out of New York.

He trusted Mabel to a degree, though he had no idea why, and honestly, he probably shouldn't have trusted her - she was shady and secretive, and knew things she shouldn't have, like...Stan thought back over recent events. Knew things she shouldn't have, like...his damn full name! He'd never told her any part of his name, and here she was, shouting Stanley Caryn Pines to the rooftops. Well, not his middle name. He'd worked long and hard to make sure nobody knew his middle name. He'd also worked to make sure nobody, at least not here, knew his real name! Maybe not as long, and maybe not as hard, but he'd still worked, dammit!   
"Mabel?" He says, setting his cup down on the small coffee table in Fiddleford's room.

"Yeah?" She asks, and her voice is just as cheery as ever, but now Stan thinks it's almost scarily high, that it might be hiding malice behind it.  
"How did you know my name?"  
"You just looked like a Stan."  
"You don't-," Stan's words are catching in his throat now. "You don't get someone's full name right the first time just by looking at them. It's not-it's just not something that happens."

"I-I can't tell you. I wish I could, I really do, but I can't." Mabel sounds like she's really, truly sorry, like there's nothing more she'd like to do than tell him.  
"You can, and you will, or I'm not going anywhere with you!"  
"I really can't."

"Okay, bye then." He says, and he's shaking, but he gets up and starts walking towards the door anyway. Something, he doesn't know what, is pressing him to go back, to turn around and apologize for ever even trying to leave Mabel.  
"Wait!" She calls. "Fine, I'll tell you how I know your name."  
He turns, eying her sceptically. "Then tell me."  
"I am - well, was, your guardian angel."  
"What?"

Fiddleford takes a step away from her. "Excuse me?"  
"Okay, so, long story short, constellations are actually guardian angels for very certain people. I told you my brother's name was Dipper?"  
"You've got to be kidding me."  
"Yeah, no, unfortunately."  
Fiddleford clears his throat. "I'd just like to point out that there is not a constellation named Mabel."

"No, but Cassiopeia is the least inconspicuous name ever. Besides, I prefer Mabel."

"Okay, so, tell me - why me? Is that why you aren't an angel anymore?"  
"No. I'm no longer a guardian angel because I failed to keep you safe from up there. So I have to do this the good old-fashioned way. Besides, you do deserve a guardian. You're special, Stan."

"You're sure you're not supposed to be looking after my brother?"  
"Of course. That's Dipper's job. Now, let's get you where you need to be."  
"Yeah, where is that?"

"I can't tell you. We need to keep some of our secrets, y'know?"


End file.
